On Tuesday, March 3, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in City of Los Angeles v. Patel. Los Angeles has an ordinance that requires hotels to maintain certain records about their guests and to produce those records for police officers upon request. The officer does not necessarily need a warrant or any particular suspicion. Hoteliers claim that this regime violates the Fourth Amendment. Interestingly, the hoteliers do not allege that any particular search was illegal. Is this kind of “facial” Fourth Amendment challenge to a statute or ordinance (as opposed to an “as applied” challenge to a particular search carried out under the statute) permissible? This issue raises fundamental questions about the constitutional structure of judicial review, with importance reaching far beyond the Fourth Amendment context.

On Wednesday, March 4, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, one of the most talked-about cases of this term. At issue is whether the Internal Revenue Service may permissibly promulgate regulations to extend tax-credit subsidies to coverage purchased through exchanges established by the federal government under Section 1321 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Those challenging the statute argue that tax-credit subsidies can only be legally extended to those purchasing insurance in state-run exchanges – fewer than 20 states have created such exchanges. Professor Jonathan Adler, widely regarded as one of the architects of this most recent challenge to the affordable care act, will attend the oral arguments and offer his thoughts to a live Teleforum audience.

Prof. Jonathan H. Adler, Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law

In a 4-1-4 decision issued on February 25, the United States Supreme Court held that a federal criminal law prohibiting the destruction of corporate records and other “tangible objects” could not be used against a commercial fisherman who threw undersized fish overboard to avoid prosecution. The decision featured an unusual lineup of justices, wave after wave of fishing metaphors, and a citation to Dr. Seuss. Todd Braunstein covered the November oral arguments on a Teleforum conference call, and he will return to wade through the complicated decision.

The United States military currently views cyberspace as the “fifth domain” of warfare (alongside land, air, sea, and space), and the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency all field teams of hackers who can, and do, launch computer virus strikes against enemy targets. In fact, as @War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex shows, U.S. hackers were crucial to our victory in Iraq. Shane Harris delves into the frontlines of America’s new cyber war. As recent revelations have shown, government agencies are joining with tech giants like Google and Facebook to collect vast amounts of information. The military has also formed a new alliance with tech and finance companies to patrol cyberspace, and Mr. Harris offers a deeper glimpse into this partnership than we have ever seen before. Finally, Mr. Harris explains what the new cybersecurity regime means for all of us, who spend our daily lives bound to the internet — and are vulnerable to its dangers.

Shane Harris, Senior Correspondent, The Daily Beast, and ASU Future of War Fellow, New America

Paul Rosenzweig, Principal, Red Branch Law and Consulting, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security